Hissar Culture

Hissar Culture 

an archaeological culture of the Late Neolithic (tentatively 7,000 to 2,000 B.C.) distributed in the Kafirnigan and Vakhsh river valleys in southwestern Tadzhikistan. Major monuments are Tutkaul (southeast of Dushanbe) and Kui-Bul’en (near the city of Kuliaba). It was characterized by crude stone tools and a flint-flaking industry. Ground and polished axes made of greenstone existed. Fragments of hand-modeled clay vessels with cloth impressions on the inside surface have been found at several sites. The Hissar culture represents a culture, archaic in appearance, of tribes of the foothills and mountain valleys that evidently developed at the same time as the more developed, settled farming cultures (Anau, Dzheitun) in other parts of Middle Asia. The chief occupations of the peoples of the Hissar culture were hunting, livestock breeding, and some farming.

REFERENCES

Okladnikov, A. P. “Issledovaniia pamiatnikov kamennogo veka Tadzhikistana.” In Tr. Tadzhikskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii. vol. 3. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958.
Korobkova, G. F., and V. A. Ranov. “Neolit gornykh raionov Srednei Azii.” In the collection Problemy arkheologii Srednei Azii. Leningrad, 1968.

V. M. MASSON